Anatel fines a lot and receives little; of BRL 7.8 billion, received BRL 1 billion

Since it was created in 1997, the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) has fined a lot and received little: the data in the history released by the regulatory agency show that it applied the equivalent of R$ 7.86 billion in fines today, but received 1 /8 of this amount, or R$926.12 million.

There were 111,67 thousand administrative processes opened (PADOs); of these, 57.23 thousand resulted in fines, but only 37.69 thousand were paid.

“In case of non-payment, the fine goes to administrative collection and, maintaining default, the collection is made in the judicial sphere via the Federal Attorney General. It appears that, in most cases, the fines are paid, but they represent a smaller portion of the amount of fines resulting from Anatel’s PADOs,” the agency said in a statement.

This means that, if most of the fines were applied to small economic groups, the large operators fight to the last resort not to pay them, appealing the conviction in court. As escrow deposits are made (ie, in escrow accounts), the data are computed as balances not settled by Anatel.

Big fight not to pay

While small businesses are defendants in more than 88.7 thousand PADOs, only Oi is Anatel’s target operator in 10.6 thousand administrative proceedings. Next comes the Vivo (Telefônica), with 5.2 thousand; Claro, with 4.4 thousand processes; and TIM, with 1.3 thousand.

According to the regulatory agency, however, most of the processes were closed by agreement or payment of the fine – Oi still has 503 administrative processes pending, while Oi Vivo accounts today for 143 PADOs; Claro and TIM have 112 and 48 lawsuits open, respectively.

Anatel explains that the number of processes is directly proportional to the company’s performance – Oi, which is responsible for the country’s fixed telephony, has more processes, while the Vivo, the largest cell phone operator, comes next among those that respond to lawsuits filed by Anatel.